He lowers his voice to match mine.
“It’s a door you either choose to walk through or walk away from. It’s just a choice. Is that too much?”
I shut my eyes so I can think. I don’t care how it looks, I need to shut out the sights around me so that I can listen to my gut. Underneath all the barbed wire and flooding dark emotions, behind the instinct to run, there’s something else. I just can’t quite reach it.
My mouth opens and, in one breath, the words flow out. “I just don’t know how to trust in a future with anyone.”
My eyes are still closed, but I feel a small shift in the air and I somehow know he has just moved closer to me. That’s the first thing I feel, followed by his warm touch as he cups his hands just where my jaw curves into the sides of my neck.
He presses his forehead to mine and lowers his voice to a whisper. His touch seems to tug at the fear lodged in my core.
“You know how,” he says. “It scares you, but you know how.”
I keep my eyes closed and feel the place where our faces touch growing warm.
He’s right. I do know how. I’m just terrified to open up the parts of myself that he can hurt the most, to show him where he can cut the deepest. But the thing is, I’ve tried to keep those parts closed all along, yet the pain still managed to reach it. So in remaining closed, what am I keeping out, if not the bad things?
I inhale and his scent envelops me—warm, masculine, safe. My skin tingles at the memory of his arms around me, his kiss. I keep still as I begin to feel a curious sensation again, the way I did in the hospital. This time it’s almost like a vacuum is pulling something out of me. It’s his touch, tugging at my fear until its roots are exposed and writhing around. It’s all the more terrifying that way, much worse than I could have imagined.
“Alexis.”
I almost shiver at the way he says my name. As though it’s not a name, but an anchor, something that he is rooted to and cannot set sail without.
The roots of my fear seem to dry up, crushing away in the air. They leave behind a cloud of dust that finally, after all of these years, seems to settle. I realize now they were just ghosts of my past, never real to begin with.
This is real. Leo is real. His touch, his scent. His voice, low, but vibrating from deep in his throat when he says, “Before you, I lived for myself. And that was enough. All my life, that was enough. I even thought I was happy. But now, that life feels like a joke. A shadow. A life without you feels like half a life.”
I open my eyes and it seems to be at the precise moment he is opening his. Our heads part so that we can see each other.
“Leo, I’m…” I swallow and try to speak, but I can’t. Dammit, I just can’t. Then I do, just not the words I mean to. “I’m not good with...these things.”
He almost smiles and I think he can feel what I’m trying to say. I think he can make out the things my heart can’t speak because it never learned the language. Maybe it was something my mother was supposed to teach me, maybe my father. Neither of them did so I’ll just never know.
Yet Leo doesn’t hesitate; his heart is open and whole. He can speak directly from it as though it were made of speakers. He is my voice. He answers questions I can’t think to ask. Tells me things I don’t know I yearn for the sound of.
“I know you don’t want promises,” he says. “I know you’ve heard them all before. So I’m not going to make any. I’m going to tell you facts.”
He holds my gaze and lowers his hands to my waist. “And I know these are facts because they are decisions I’m going to make and honor every single day of my life. I’m going to love you every day for the rest of my life. I’m not just going to love you, I’m going to love every version of you, everything you will become, everything you will grow and change into. I know that because, for as long as you let me, I will be by your side, changing with you, growing with you. It won’t always be easy. Sometimes it will be hard. But it will always be worth it. We will go through things that are meant to tear us apart but they will only bring us closer together. We will grow into each other. And even though nothing is more vulnerable than giving in to loving someone completely, we will do it without hesitation, day after day. Because our love will be worth baring our souls for. Our love will grow to sizes we can’t even begin to imagine now. And it will be worth risking everything for. I can’t tell you how it will end. But I can tell you that this is where it begins. Please tell me you’re willing to be crazy enough to believe in a future with me. Please tell me you’re in.”
I search his eyes and I see, to my surprise, threads of fear weave there, threads of uncertainty not in what he’s just said, but in my own reaction to it. I realize I haven’t given him anything. Not a shred of hope. Yet he has poured himself at my feet, and while I’ve always been terrified of doing that myself, he does it in the face of all the risk and without any guarantees.
I realize then how brave Leo is. I realize that putting your armor down is not a sign of weakness. Showing someone the places they could hurt you the most is courage beyond measure. Because love isn’t a reaction to something around us; it’s an experience we are built for, wired for.
I kiss him. I kiss him like I’m suffocating and he is the air I take into my lungs. I feel the breath of relief leave him for just an instant before he kisses me back, fiercely.
I’m not sure how long we kiss. Time doesn’t quite pass the same way when Leo is with me. We break apart and I press my forehead to his. I touch his face and my thumb trails along the outline of his swollen lips. “I’m in. I’m all in.”
His lips twitch under my thumb. “Fucking finally—”
I taste the rest of his words and he pulls my legs around his waist hoisting me up like I weigh nothing at all. His hands graze the skin under my shirt, and I melt into him unequivocally. Before I know it, I’m propped up on the kitchen counter.
His mouth moves over to my neck. My lips part and words flow through them as though attached to a wisp of my soul. “I love you.”
“I know,” he says, his lips by my ear, his tongue tracing circles right behind them.
God, I love this man. I love him despite my misgivings. Because he loves me even when I don’t deserve to be loved, when I’m cold and distant and closed off from it all. He knows the broken parts of me and doesn’t cringe away from their hideousness.
The truth is that trying to shut myself to love was idiotic to begin with. The door closed from fear. And the fear remained inside. It festered in the dark. I didn’t need someone to save me from it. Because I had the power to reopen that door whenever I chose to. I just needed to reach out a little further than I was comfortable with. All I needed, more than anything, was for someone to convince me that love is worth facing the fear of the unknown.
THE END
Thank you for reading.
Stay tuned for the story of Emily Stone…
Hearts of Stone (Book 2)
Entice
Coming in 2015
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Acknowledgements
Let’s start with my Beta-Readers. I was fortunate to have four smart, articulate, opinionated women read my messy drafts and give me their insightful and often gut-wrenching feedback. You know who you are. Thank you so much.
Kristina, thank you for saving the world from my abundant use of commas, for taking my manuscript early, and getting it back to me so soon.
Courtney, let’s be real—this novel would’ve never seen the light of day without your encouragement. It would be buried in a folder somewhere on my desktop. I don’t know how to convey how much you’ve helped me in this journey other than to just say: you’re awesome.
Stephanie, you have such an eye for good flow. Thank you for being a supportive friend, for taking the time to ponder random passages. Most of all, thank you for showing me how to dance off my worries to Rod Steward’s ‘If You Think I’m Sexy.’
My Best Friend, your enthusiasm lifted me up in the darkest moments of crippling self-doubt. You’re a constant in my life and a source of strength, confidence, and inspiration.
My big sister, my biggest fan, my loudest cheerleader. You’ve encouraged my writing from the time I was a little girl. On that note, I’ve got loads of other stuff for you to read. So thank you for promising to not read this book. You better never see this.
My Husband, I wrote the first draft for you and it’s because of you that I am now fulfilling a lifelong dream of publishing a novel. I can’t begin to tell you how much your endless support means to me. Thank you for believing in me, for being there every step of the way, even from the middle of a war-zone, 7,816 miles away. I love you.
I was deeply motivated by the TedTalks of researcher Brene Brown. If you are familiar with her work, you will recognize the influences of her research on vulnerability in this novel. Her presentations are immeasurably moving and, for me, have been life changing.
Some of my favorite parts of this novel were inspired by the poems of Christopher Poindexter and R.M. Drake. These are two insanely talented young men who weave magic with words in a way that often leaves me in awe.
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